The system is insane. Everything about the process is insane. The cost of the process is insane. The back and forth to Santo Domingo is insane. The time-consuming process of being sent back and forth for this and that paper, getting it stamped, and then authorized, and then approved, and the re-approved is insane.
I don't see the logic of the process unless you plan on spending the rest of your life in the DR.
I watched Big Red go through the crazy process--back and forth to SD, over and over again, only to be sent back to wait for this or that paper to be approved, and then back to SD again, only be told midstream, "Oh yeah, sorry, the laws have changed again, you need to do this now!"
Meanwhile half of Big Red's Russian friends--many who have lived here twice as long as she has...have never bothered applying for anything. Ever. And have no plans to either. They leave once a year and go back home, pay the exit fee, and then come back. They have never bothered to apply for anything. They have no plans to apply for anything. Meanwhile, many of them have been here 18+yrs. They're not going anywhere.
It's crazy. the whole system reeks of backwards, inefficient, 3rd world Kafkaesque redundancy. The entire process seems completely unnecessary when you can just leave every year and pay an exit fee.
if you want to live here without residency--and thousands of people do without a single problem--why not do it until they officially start cracking down....which they always threaten to do, but haven't got around to even initiating anything remotely close to it.
There was this threat of round-up of foreigners a couple of years ago--loading them onto buses, before realizing 'Oh, yeah, some of these people might just be tourists!" That lasted for all of 2-days..never to be repeated again. "Oops, we're sorry!"
Almost everyone of Big Red's friends are living in the DR without going through this crazy, Kafkaesque process. Meanwhile, all these North Americans are jumping through hoops, made to run through hurdles, and swim against the current...for what? Because of some perceived threat that something is going to happen? Wait until the government gets their sh11t together and start initiating and enforcing some these ever shape-shifting laws...which, by the way, may not start until long after most people on here are dead.
